Slow Food Nation, the anti fast food event staged this past labor day weekend, was much more than what a Sf community blogger called "a place for arrogant white snobs to chastise the working class for not being able to eat and live more leisurely" This event is truly about getting back down to basics... eating the stuff your grandfather used to pick from the garden or your grandmother bought from the butcher. An expected 50,000 people gathered in San Francisco to participate in workshops, panel discussions, slow food journeys thru the bay area, and yes! lots of of tastings from the great harvest of CAlifornia's small farms as well as regional specialties throughout the US including Kentucky aged ham and Puebla Blue Corn Posole from New Mexico. The vision and mission statement of Slow Food USA, that food should be good, clean and just and brings community together (its founder Carlo Petrini coined the term ecogastronomy when it started back in 1986) was exemplified beautifully.The lawn in front of city hall was transformed into a Victory Garden. Take an urban plot, make it green and grow food for people in need.The Youth Food Movement at Slow Food Nation held many events to bring together students with farmers and cooks, artisans and activists linking them to the resources they need for a broader food education.Students could tour the edible schoolyard in Berkeley to learn about how food is grown and what food to grow in a public school garden, spend a night at Slide Ranch, a teaching farm in San Francisco, or participate in an EAT-IN at Dolores Park, where teams of young people pick up foods at local farmers markets, take it back to kitchens where chefs will lead them in preparing the food together.The Food for Thought series focused primarily on three leading issues of our time; health; how cheap calories are contributing to obesity, energy; how we can make the shift from fossil fuels to biofuels to grow our food and lastly climate; how the worlds current food systems rely on trucks, trains and planes and how those modes of transportation are contributing to global warming. A giant size scroll , unveiled on August 29th, 2008 called the Declaration of Healthy Food and Agriculture spelled out a radically different approach to food and agriculture in the 21st century. By fall 2009, the goal is to get at least 350000 signatures to present to congress in Washington D.C "The purpose of U.S. Food and Agriculture must change" says Michael Dimock former chairman of Slow Food USA who initiated the concept of the petition, " It can no longer focus on the production of cheap calories."Slow Food USA is made up of many small local chapters(originally called convivium) each championing and defending the foods and food traditions of their particular area. We have three, Carmel, Santa Cruz and Monterey here on the central coast.The Monterey Chapter has featured a Strawberry Celebration dinner featuring strawberry gazpacho, strawberry salsa, and even strawberry vinergar. The great Dungeness Crabs highlighted another dinner and a yearly fundraiser benefits the Freedom School Garden Project in Freedom, California to insure that kids learn from the ground up where their food comes from.The Slow Food Nation showstopper, a 45,000 space at Fort Mason center transformed into a kind of Alice-in-food wonderland of Tasting Pavilions where the very best of the best were chosen by a select tasting panel giving the public the choicest Chocolate, Charcuterie, Tea, Coffee, Honey and Preserves, Bread, Fish, Cheese Wine and Beer. One could not be slow at this gastronomic extravaganza if one were to try everything. At the Ice Cream Pavilion, a futurisitic-looking igloo, you could have melonball sized scoops of strawberrybasil icecream, pistachio, molasses and Sharffenberger gelato. I loved the rhubarb chutney with a shmear of fomage banc at the Pickles and Chutney joint. Mason jar lids dangled above on nylon fish line and the names of the representative pickle makers were all displayed on the empty glass jars. Yes, you might call it a high brow feeding frenzy, but as one of the Mclure brothers says as he sampled out his garlic dill naturally fermented cuke; "passed down from my great, great polish grandmothers recipe." .

Slow Food Nation, the anti fast food event staged this past labor day weekend, was much more than what a Sf community blogger called "a place for arrogant white snobs to chastise the working class for not being able to eat and live more leisurely" This event is truly about getting back down to basics... eating the stuff your grandfather used to pick from the garden or your grandmother bought from the butcher. An expected 50,000 people gathered in San Francisco to participate in workshops, panel discussions, slow food journeys thru the bay area, and yes! lots of of tastings from the great harvest of CAlifornia's small farms as well as regional specialties throughout the US including Kentucky aged ham and Puebla Blue Corn Posole from New Mexico. The vision and mission statement of Slow Food USA, that food should be good, clean and just and brings community together (its founder Carlo Petrini coined the term ecogastronomy when it started back in 1986) was exemplified beautifully. The lawn in front of city hall was transformed into a Victory Garden. Take an urban plot, make it green and grow food for people in need. The Youth Food Movement at Slow Food Nation held many events to bring together students with farmers and cooks, artisans and activists linking them to the resources they need for a broader food education. Students could tour the edible schoolyard in Berkeley to learn about how food is grown and what food to grow in a public school garden, spend a night at Slide Ranch, a teaching farm in San Francisco, or participate in an EAT-IN at Dolores Park, where teams of young people pick up foods at local farmers markets, take it back to kitchens where chefs will lead them in preparing the food together. The Food for Thought series focused primarily on three leading issues of our time; health; how cheap calories are contributing to obesity, energy; how we can make the shift from fossil fuels to biofuels to grow our food and lastly climate; how the worlds current food systems rely on trucks, trains and planes and how those modes of transportation are contributing to global warming. A giant size scroll , unveiled on August 29th, 2008 called the Declaration of Healthy Food and Agriculture spelled out a radically different approach to food and agriculture in the 21st century. By fall 2009, the goal is to get at least 350000 signatures to present to congress in Washington D.C "The purpose of U.S. Food and Agriculture must change" says Michael Dimock former chairman of Slow Food USA who initiated the concept of the petition, " It can no longer focus on the production of cheap calories." Slow Food USA is made up of many small local chapters(originally called convivium) each championing and defending the foods and food traditions of their particular area. We have three, Carmel, Santa Cruz and Monterey here on the central coast. The Monterey Chapter has featured a Strawberry Celebration dinner featuring strawberry gazpacho, strawberry salsa, and even strawberry vinergar. The great Dungeness Crabs highlighted another dinner and a yearly fundraiser benefits the Freedom School Garden Project in Freedom, California to insure that kids learn from the ground up where their food comes from. The Slow Food Nation showstopper, a 45,000 space at Fort Mason center transformed into a kind of Alice-in-food wonderland of Tasting Pavilions where the very best of the best were chosen by a select tasting panel giving the public the choicest Chocolate, Charcuterie, Tea, Coffee, Honey and Preserves, Bread, Fish, Cheese Wine and Beer. One could not be slow at this gastronomic extravaganza if one were to try everything. At the Ice Cream Pavilion, a futurisitic-looking igloo, you could have melonball sized scoops of strawberrybasil icecream, pistachio, molasses and Sharffenberger gelato. I loved the rhubarb chutney with a shmear of fomage banc at the Pickles and Chutney joint. Mason jar lids dangled above on nylon fish line and the names of the representative pickle makers were all displayed on the empty glass jars. Yes, you might call it a high brow feeding frenzy, but as one of the Mcwhitter brothers says as he sampled out his garlic dill naturally fermented cuke; "passed down from my great, great polish grandmothers recipe." .

Listen up this is the most amazing dining experience I have had in a long time.... The restaurant is the same one of Citronelle fame in D.C. Michel Richard has done it again.

The chef tonight was Anthony Keane and he says he has worked for years with Richard and so he knows how he thinks!! and they bounce back ideas off of eachother...

I shared 3 appetizers ane one main course and dessert, 2 glasses of pinot noir and 2 coffees and including tip the bill came to $90.. worth every penney..

The wait staff never got in our way they were just the right combination of informative and obliging and out waiter seemed to know when to make himself scarce and there was none of that condescending "we" as in "Will we be having bottled water or tap tonight?"

First: cuttlefish fettucini! Yes cuttlefish cut to look like the squiggly fettucini noodles with baby clams in wonderful butter sauce with vegetables cut to look like sprinkles...but you could still taste their distinctive flavors.\Next..what the chef calls MOSAIC: Paper thin slices of ahi salmon carpaccio beef sitting like checkerboared pieces with a spattering of green which was jalapeno sauce.. there was also intermingles in all this some pickled daikon and then some roasted peppers. There were also black dots which were salted black beans over this..It also had leaves of basil over this and then mandarin orange and grapefruit sections. Thius dish was so wonderful you were able to get tot he essence of each slice. flavors all blended smoothly.

Then... tuna tartare,.. a masterpiece. On a long oblong white plate, little boxed cut pieces of watermelon, beet and tuna tartare with a hint of cayenne all laced with some kinf of orange oil and other floral essences.For the entree in was breast of duck in a blackcherry anise sauce with thin greenbeans and carrot pearls and baby white onions, In its own ramekin... a complete winnerL foie gras creme brulee.. exactly how it sounds.. except the fois gras is so light and creamy and sweet.

The dessert was called celebration..everything youc ould possibly want in a cake! Open up a thinly walled dome of bittersweet chocolate and you will find layers of bliss! The chocolate cracks when hammered and splinters away to reveal loads of berrie over a spngecake over lots of vanilla icecream and whipped cream and then some type of extra crunchy ginger cookie...a dab of caramel sauce was blended in with it all when needed/

I think the pinot noir is getting to me now so I will take a break from writing.. Happy in the kitchenl....anina

What was the big deal about making my own crusts? I was not afraid of baking bread, cakes or even coffeecakes.... but PIE? Something was wrong and I was determined to get to the bottom of this.The pies I had tried to bake recently were all apple; all semi-disasters. The first: burnt edges, the second: ultra thick edges; and the third; a sunken heap of burnt and ultra thick edges. I was dreaming of a flaky, tender buttery crust. Every time I looked up' PIES' in one my favorite cookbooks, my eyes glazed over and my palms got sweaty. In Julia Childs’ Classic book; Mastering The Art OF French Cooking, the pie pastry instructions were 21 pages long. I envied my friends when they told me about their mothers who just seemed to make the classics magically appear for birthdays and holidays: cherry, apple, pumpkin and lemon meringue.The Cooking magazine covers were emblazoned with glossy and glamorous photo shoots of summer fruits...the plumpest and the juiciest; the biggest and the boldest all guaranteed to tantalize and titillate. I closed my eyes and imagined myself wowing my dinner guests with one of my homemade pies..I heard myself saying; “ Sure, it would be no trouble at all. Let me just whip one right up...out of the oven and onto your plateJust like we learned in grade school; 'roll it and pat it and mark it with a P......' I began my pie quest with asking a few of my favorite pastry chefs their secrets Their answer: “butter, butter and more butter.” One chef responded slightly differently: “chilled butter.”The grandmothers I knew all said: “Watch me!” adding somewhat encouragingly; ‘ there was really nothing to it.’ My own VIENNESE grandmother did make strudles and tortes but she rather preferred to take me on an outing to her favorite pastry shop in Queens, New York. Her mantra was always; “Just eat a little protein before something sweet” I remember her saying that my bones needed some lean roast beef to grow big and strong. She always had lifesavers in her purse and believed that sucking on one was a great “pick me up” In fact, she seemed to always be reaching for something in that purse; something reassuring, maybe a hanky, a hairpin, lipstick, sweet n low sugars or an amazing assortment of coffee or chocolate hard candies I have never forgotten though the day she made apple strudle.. She became very serious and quiet. She mounded the flour on a marble slab, cracked and separated yolks from whites, poured the yolks slowly into the deep pocket of flour ...her bracelets jangling loudly as she worked to form a smooth dough. ...She let me feel the dough for a quick second when she thought it was, as she said “getting there.” When the dough was ready, she wrapped it in waxed paper and put it in the fridge. She said the dough needed to “rest.” After what seemed like an eternity, she rolled the chilled dough into a square, then draped, stretched and pulled , letting this ever thinner elastic sheath hang over her knuckles until she formed a huge rectangular piece of dough/ cloth. Lastly, she filled it with sliced apples, cinnamon, sugar, lemon rind, buttered bread crumbs, and, with a few quick flicks of the underlying cloth, turned it into a 4 foot long roll!! I was forever mesmerized.Before embarking on my perilous pie crust mastering mission once again, I spent a few weeks taking refuge in bakers catalogs. I gazed longingly at the indispensable products...the magic links connecting me to crust perfection: The burlap pastry cloth! (absorbs excess flour) the pastry blender (cuts butter into flour into the perfect pea-shaped sizes) pie weights(necklace of metal beads to keep crust from sinking) a PIE BIRD ( allows steam to escape underneath a top crust to prevent the horror of SPILLAGE!!After about the 10th time of reading the directions for pie crust in The Complete Book of Pastry, I was back at the pastry board (or if you are really lucky..a marble board) and ready to play dough.” As I started to mix the butter into the flour, the visions of sugar plums and sour cherries long gone from my mind, I was now working under very strict commands: "KEEP IT MOIST, BUT NOT WET!" WORK DOUGH QUICKLY, THEN RELAX IT!" "SQUEEZE IT DON'T KNEAD IT” as I plunged deeper into unknown territory. “Next...let the squeeze-shaped dough rest in the refrigerator for 4 to 24 hours...the gluten sheets will relax and mellowing enzymes will help absorb the moisture fully." TRANSLATION: AVOID SHRINKAGE! My heart pounding and my hands flour-soaked, I read on;“ The temperature will protect these tiny pea sized particles of butter and flour . In the oven each flour-coated bit of moist fat will create small burst of steam to expand and flavor the dough and provide flakiness.”TRANSLATION: KEEP DOUGH COOL AT ALL TIMES!I needed to get my hands off this dough as fast as possible...while at the same time coax it into a ball and get it into the fridge. All my natural instincts were being tested and I finally realized I had been giving this creature far too much attention. Little did I know that "if you activate the proteins in the gluten they will bind together, get trapped.TRANSLATION: YOU DON'T WANT A TOUGH DOUGH!I invested in a marble board on which to roll out the dough and then fit it into a pie plate. I had no idea 1/4 inch thick is so thin. "marble conducts heat away from objects twenty times better than plastic or burlap cloth helping the dough to stay cool. I fold the dough in half and spread it into a pie plate leaving a ½ inch overhang which I use to make some sort of crimping design for the edges of this dough. I grab all the reenforcements, the foil-filled beans and the pie weights, to keep this dough from toppling over. I partially bake the crust to "set" it in its proper position, When its time to crack open the oven door for a peek I see it...MY CRUST... standing straight and firm and slightly golden: “Take it out now, I shout aloud to myself...”Take it out Now..And I do and the ordeal is done.. Yes, for that moment when the fork pierces that pastry when it moves through the filling to make the first cut. You can feel the dough give just a little...still strong but flaky..so rich yet tender This was one fear well worth conquering any old way you slice it!

I can't thank you all enought for these suggestions.. I went with the standard cut up tubes and tentacles after having soaked the tubes in buttermilk to soften them, then I dipped them in flour and paprika. fried them at 375 then squeezed lemon and fish and chips vinegar... very tasty.. also sprinkled with italian parsley... yummy